Dark Spaces – Devlog 007

Chapter One will consist scenes constructed with primitive shapes.

My hope for this project to create dozens of scenes over the next few years. Once I publish the initial version, I’ll release updates with more content to keep exploring my ideas. I have a lot ideas, but I need to focus on that 1.0 release. I’ve been thinking about where I want to start. I’ve decided to go back to the root of the idea that I wrote down in October 2024. I’m going to build a handful of scenes that use primitive shapes in interesting ways.

I’ll pick a shape, and then build something interesting with it. I’ll rely heavily on entity cloning, object pooling, random and procedural positioning, and animations. I’ll use some of the materials that I talked about in the previous posts, as well as a modified fresnel shader from this video.

These scenes will all feature a simple gray background. I started with the dome environment in Reality Composer Pro. I removed the grid lines, made a few changes to the materials, and scaled it way up.

I’ve found I can create some interesting environments by scaling this in different ways. For example, in this video I show a version that has the x axis scaled to a tiny fraction compared to y and z. This creates the effect of an endless corridor.

I’ll play with the scale and position of the dome, depending on the needs of the scene. Sometimes I want the environment to feel almost possibly huge. Other times, I want bring things in to feel close and cozy.

I’ve taken my other scene ideas and set them aside for now. I’m going to focus on the 5-6 scenes for Chapter One, then try to open a TestFlight for feedback.